—The ship.
Aboard a large galleon, we devoted ourselves to fishing.
“I caught seaweed~♪”
“I caught a SHOE~♪”
“Fuhaha. We palm-top rabbits… prove world-class even at angling… our own talent terrifies us.”
The palm-top rabbits, as reported, were having the time of their lives catching garbage.
“Master… my sincerest apologies, but I must request temporary leave from… attending to you…”
Ouroboros, it turns out, is prone to seasickness.
As we luxuriated in the voyage—
“Is the king SANE, though? Sending women and children after KRAKENS…”
The captain — a man called Samson — came over to needle us.
Currently the Adventurers’ Guild’s sea-monster specialist; formerly, a pirate. Complicated résumé, per the gossip.
“‘Women and children’… do you not know what palm-top rabbits ARE?”
“Nope. Land matters ain’t my department.”
Ah. I see.
In that case, looking at our roster WOULD induce anxiety. Fair.
“Listen up, yeah? A kraken is a MONSTER among monsters.”
“How much of a monster are we talking?”
“Mostly legs, but… forty meters, tip to tip. It latches onto a ship, wraps the hull in those legs, and squeezes like a giant serpent.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Crushes the hull like a vise and sinks her. Then it eats the survivors as they drown. THAT kind of horror.”
Okay, that IS horrifying. Functionally a kaiju.
“It’s a sea monster, see… sword-types are near useless. Only long-range casting even dents ‘em. Nastiest kind of enemy there is.”
“Well — we’ll be fine, rest easy. More importantly: do kraken materials sell high?”
By his description, the palm-top rabbits won’t be combat-relevant this time.
Muscle-brain Sonya’s out too.
Maria and Ouroboros can cast, and… more to the point, we brought CORNELIA.
—Bluntly: this is a guaranteed rout in our favor.
“Ha! What a happy bunch o’ fools. You lot seriously think you can exterminate KRAKENS?”
“That’s the general plan, yes.”
“Sure, the king sent ya, so you’ve got SOMETHING. But sea ain’t land, friend. Look around — I don’t see a single caster here who could scratch a kraken?”
“And I said we’ll be fine.”
“When you lot get wiped, the SHIP goes down with ya. That’s MY neck. And I don’t recall signing up to bet my life on a daycare outing.”
“What’s your point?”
“When we hit kraken waters, I’m giving ya a rowboat.”
“HAAH?”
“Climb in and go die on your own time, is the point. I’m not becoming joint-fate partners with a nursery class, hear me?”
He swept a look across Cornelia, Katia, and Sonya — and spat on his own deck.
This man has begun saying genuinely deranged things.
As I weighed the options—
“Boss… leave this to me.”
“Atomu-kun?”
“I’ll set him straight, one hit.”
Atomu-kun is a good kid.
Watching us get insulted was more than he could sit through, apparently.
“OI, CAPTAIN! You listen here! What EXACTLY is wrong with babysitting, HUH?! It’s the best job there IS! Men who think like you are the ones I can’t FORGIVE!”
THAT’S what set you off?!
The boy is a gentleman pervert of solid forged steel, I swear.
…I do love that about him though.
So Atomu-kun grabbed the captain by the collar and—
—ah. He got flattened.
The captain is an ex-high-rank adventurer with anti-personnel pirate experience — a pure combat-brain build.
Atomu-kun LOOKS like a wall of muscle, but he’s spec’d as a Sage. In a fistfight, the math was never in his favor.
He trudged back with tears in his eyes.
“I couldn’t do it, boss… I’m sorry.”
“For the record, you also escalate WAY too fast.”
And then… Cornelia spoke up, distinctly displeased.
“Oi. Captain?”
“Ah? What is it, brat?”
“Oi oi — if CORNELIA enters this argument, it stops being an argument.”
“Nay — this is no quarrel, thou.”
“Hm?”
“Tell me, captain? A rowboat upon reaching kraken waters… was it?”
“Aye, that’s right. I’m not dyin’ for you lot.”
“The kraken waters lie… yonder, do they not?”
Cornelia pointed north; the captain nodded.
“Aye. Just so.”
“Conveniently, some twenty of them have gathered within a square kilometer. That should be the whole population.”
Cornelia focused her will — and thrust her palm toward the north.
“ULTRA-SUPREME MAGIC: LEVEL 10 — EPHTAL, EMPEROR OF THUNDER!”
—Lightning.
From near the northern horizon: a flash, then a rolling boom.
We were kilometers away, and the bolt was still PERFECTLY visible — thick as a building.
Honestly, “lightning” undersells it… more like a hundred-meter-radius pillar dropped whole from heaven.
“Mm. That should do. Approach the waters and thou’lt find electrocuted kraken corpses bobbing in every direction. And thou — do NOT forget my present. The rowboat, upon our return to land?”
Cornelia delivered it with a wink; the captain’s legs gave out and he sat down hard, face gone gray. “Awawa…”
Seriously though, she’s beyond absurd. She just ran current through an entire square KILOMETER of ocean.
…And I’m supposedly her equal. Somehow.
The captain, mouth flapping like a landed fish, finally managed to ask:
“Wh-wh-what… WHAT are you people?”
“—Farmers. Why do you ask?”